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Do We Need Brain Implants to Keep ­p with Robots?
From ACM Opinion

Do We Need Brain Implants to Keep ­p with Robots?

Pundits have been fretting a lot lately about robots leaving humans behind, taking our jobs and possibly a lot more, as in The Matrix and Terminator films.

Real Security Requires Strong Encryption–even If Investigators Get Blocked
From ACM Opinion

Real Security Requires Strong Encryption–even If Investigators Get Blocked

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have been fighting against easy, widespread public access to encryption technologies for 25 years.

Workers Displaced By Automation Should Try a New Job: Caregiver
From ACM Opinion

Workers Displaced By Automation Should Try a New Job: Caregiver

Sooner or later, the US will face mounting job losses due to advances in automation, artificial intelligence, and robotics.

Why Facebook and Twitter Can't Be Trusted to Police Themselves
From ACM Opinion

Why Facebook and Twitter Can't Be Trusted to Police Themselves

Google, Facebook and Twitter took a beating on Wednesday testifying in front of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees about their role enabling Russia's...

The Physics of Time Travel Isn't Just the Stuff of Science Fiction
From ACM Opinion

The Physics of Time Travel Isn't Just the Stuff of Science Fiction

We're all time travelers nowadays. We project ourselves mentally into the misty past and the risky future.

Learning to Spot Fake News: Start with a Gut Check
From ACM Opinion

Learning to Spot Fake News: Start with a Gut Check

Which of these statements seems more trustworthy to you?

Does Facebook Even Know How to Control Facebook?
From ACM Opinion

Does Facebook Even Know How to Control Facebook?

Later today, executives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter will go before the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify about the ways that Russian operatives used...

Behold, the World's Most Famous teapot
From ACM Opinion

Behold, the World's Most Famous teapot

Martin Newell was worried about his Ph.D. research as he sat down to tea with his wife one day in 1974.

The End of an Era Came Long Before the End of Cassini
From ACM Opinion

The End of an Era Came Long Before the End of Cassini

I have now been writing about science for nearly a dozen years, which means my career more or less overlaps with that of the Cassini probe.

Google's 'quantum Supremacy' Moment May Not Mean What You Think
From ACM Opinion

Google's 'quantum Supremacy' Moment May Not Mean What You Think

Any day now, Google is expected to achieve quantum supremacy—the use of a quantum computer to solve a problem that even the most advanced supercomputer can't unravel...

Fiction That Gets AI Right
From ACM Opinion

Fiction That Gets AI Right

Even the most futuristic applications of AI, from robotic servants to instant health scans, somehow already seem familiar because they have been endless fodder...

Russia Is Pushing to Control Cyberspace. We Should All Be Worried. 
From ACM Opinion

Russia Is Pushing to Control Cyberspace. We Should All Be Worried. 

Russia's cyber-meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been accompanied by what U.S. and European experts describe as a worrisome Kremlin campaign to...

There's No Good Decision in the Next Big Data Privacy Case
From ACM Opinion

There's No Good Decision in the Next Big Data Privacy Case

In 2013, United States agents served a warrant on Microsoft seeking the emails of a suspect in a drug case.

Driverless Cars Made Me Nervous. Then I Tried One.
From ACM Opinion

Driverless Cars Made Me Nervous. Then I Tried One.

On my fourth day in a semi-driverless car, I finally felt comfortable enough to let it stop itself.

Computing and the Fermi Paradox: A New Idea Emerges--The Aliens Are All Asleep
From ACM Opinion

Computing and the Fermi Paradox: A New Idea Emerges--The Aliens Are All Asleep

Anders Sandberg and Stuart Armstrong of the University of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, working with Milan Ćirković of the University of Novi Sad in Serbia...

The Supreme Court Is Allergic to Math
From ACM Opinion

The Supreme Court Is Allergic to Math

The Supreme Court does not compute. Or at least some of its members would rather not. The justices, the most powerful jurists in the land, seem to have a reluctance—even...

Will AI and Blockchain Be Game-Changers?
From ACM Opinion

Will AI and Blockchain Be Game-Changers?

This week saw another major achievement by Google's Deep Mind, when it showed that a neural network could learn to play Go in just three days, without even looking...

Kitchen of the Future: Smart and Fast but Not Much Fun
From ACM Opinion

Kitchen of the Future: Smart and Fast but Not Much Fun

Wandering among the engineers and strategy directors and managers of something called "connected customer experience" at the Smart Kitchen Summit, one had to wonder...

Provoking Iran Could Have ­nseen Cyber Consequences
From ACM Opinion

Provoking Iran Could Have ­nseen Cyber Consequences

On Friday, President Trump announced that he will not certify Iran's cooperation with the 2015 nuclear agreement negotiated by the Obama Administration.

Would You Buy a Self-Driving Future From These Guys?
From ACM Opinion

Would You Buy a Self-Driving Future From These Guys?

When the owner of an automated Tesla was killed in a crash last year, the carmaker's founder, Elon Musk, urged journalists to peer into the future.
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